Wilkie Collins
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William Wilkie Collins (8 January, 1824 – 23 September 1889) was a Victorian era British writer, a contemporary and friend of the more famous Charles Dickens. His works were classified at the time as 'sensation novels', a genre seen nowadays as the precursor to detective fiction and suspense fiction. He also wrote penetratingly on the plight of women and on the social and domestic issues of his time. Like many writers of his time, he published most of his novels as serials in magazines such as Dickens's All The Year Round, and was known as a master of the form, creating just the right degree of suspense to keep his audience reading from week to week.
His early novel The Woman in White (1860) deals effectively with issues relating the women's roles and class issues in Victorian society, as well as establishing a fine set of villains and innocent, female victims. It shares with The Moonstone (1868) an unusual narrative structure, somewhat resembling an epistolary novel, in which different portions of the book have different narrators, each with a very distinct narrative voice.
One of the things that made The Moonstone such a success was its sensationalist depiction of opium addiction. Unbeknownst to his readership, Collins was writing from personal experience. In his later years, Collins grew severely addicted to laudanum and as a result suffered from paranoid delusions, the most notable being his conviction that he was constantly accompanied by a doppelganger he dubbed 'Ghost Wilkie'.
From 1859 through 1868, Wilkie Collins cohabitated with Caroline Graves, who was a working-class widow. In 1868, Collins began a relationship with Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children. Graves left Collins that year, but returned to him two years later, and Collins continued the relationships with both women until his death.
Bibliography
- Antonina (1850)
- Basil (1852)
- Mr Wray's Cash Box (1852)
- Hide and Seek (1854)
- The Dead Secret (1856)
- The Woman in White (1860)
- No Name (1862)
- Armadale (1866)
- The Moonstone (1868)
- Man and Wife (1870)
- Poor Miss Finch (1872)
- Miss or Mrs? (1873)
- The New Magdalen (1873)
- The Law and The Lady (1875)
- The Two Destinies (1876)
- The Haunted Hotel (1878)
- The Fallen Leaves (1879)
- A Rogue's Life (1879)
- My Lady's Money (1879)
- Jezebel's Daughter (1880)
- The Black Robe (1881)
- Heart and Science (1883)
- I Say No (1884)
- The Evil Genius (1886)
- The Guilty River (1886)
- The Legacy of Cain (1889)
- Blind Love (1889)
External links
- The Wilkie Collins Website (http://www.deadline.demon.co.uk/wilkie/wilkie.htm)